Yes but flying is fast and convenient. Having a replacement for fossil fuel operated planes that provide the same functionality to consumers instead of asking them to somehow compromise is the key to success here.

Don't get me wrong, I love trains. I just took the train from central Germany to Glasgow this week. But it took about 14 hours, we had to change trains twice and almost missed one of the connections. Friends, on the other hand, who flew the same route arrived within ca. 3h and had basically an entire extra day here.

I live in Ireland, so no.

Well yes, but who wants the best solution that is already there if you can sell a new solution for lots of money?

That is very much a "it depends". Tracks are narrow, but very long: they have a much larger ecological impact that a runway. However tracks can handle a lot more people than a runway or two.

If the tracks are between two large cities (and the smaller cities on the way) then they are the much better option. This is the most common case by far - most people live in a large enough city to support high speed rail.

However building tracks to every small town for the few passengers that would use them is an ecological disaster and so planes like this running a few times a day to a large city (where you can then get on the trains) is the better ecological choice.

Of course in reality high speed trains are around 300km/h (world record is around 600km/h - but at those speeds the aerodynamics of altitude make the airplane better). I didn't find a speed in the article, but I would make an educated guess that they are planning on 600-700kmh speeds. Which sounds fast, but if there is tracks the train wins because a station is likely to be closer than the airport plus there is no arrive one hour before your flight rule.

The article didn't say capacity, but the picture suggests around 100 passengers. Either your town is too small for this, or your town is large enough to build tracks. In the first case you want 25 passenger airplanes. In the second case this is an ecological disaster - just build the tracks to the city.

In Spain there are a lot of electrified tracks, and all high speed tracks are, but many tracks are electrified near urban areas, and not electrified in vast rural areas. Intercity trains are Diesel electric, running on electricity when they can, and switching to diesel for the rest. I've wondered why they don't replace the diesel engines with batteries, to be charged while running on catenaries, to run the trains on the non electrified segments.

The counterpoint to this is already stated in the article; the main benefit is on routes where rail does not currently exist, or where a rail link will likely never exist (think crossing mountains or bodies of water).

I disagree. I will drive regardless for a 300 miles trip because then I have my own car when I get there. No worry about trying to rent a car. Don't forget that by the time the airplane takes off I've already driving 1/3rd of the way there (half an hour to the airport, which I arrived at an hour early for security). By the time I get my rental car and get where I want to be - my personal car is only 10 minutes behind. I also used a lot less fuel in my car than the ticket price and we haven't even paid for the rental car (or taxi)

Those who don't have a car have different considerations, and this is aimed at Europe where that is more common. But then anyone who doesn't have a car in Europe should live close to a high speed rail station (note that I said should - large parts of Europe need to get their act together and build better rail)